Wireless Java for Symbian Devices (Symbian Press) - Softcover

Allin, Jonathan; Turfus, Colin; Robinson, Alan; Sweet, Lucy; Bown, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0471486841 ISBN 13: 9780471486848

Publisher: Wiley, 2001

Synopsis

"......as computing moves away from the desktop and into our hands, we demand ever-higher reliability. Device manufacturers and service providers can no longer afford to think in terms of proprietary systems. They think instead of open standards and cross-platform Java technology." From the foreword by Greg Papadopoulos, CTO, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Java(TM) is the preferred language for developing applications and services on the Symbian OS: It is a powerful programming environment that enables fast, secure deployment of applications and services onto a wide range of wireless devices. Symbian's Java implementation gives developers access to key wireless technologies, including telephony, contacts management, calendaring, Datagram messaging and power monitoring. Complete with numerous illustrative and real-world examples, this 'from-the-source' guide provides developers with authoritative, practical and timely information on: * using the Symbian Software Development Kits. * the JavaPhone and Personal Java APIs, and how they are implemented. * writing efficient and optimized code for constrained devices. * understanding and working with Java on Communicator reference designs. * creating games. * accessing native functionality through JNI (Java Native Interface). * creating wireless services. * operator and service provider issues, including security, provisioning, rapid and reliable development. The book also contains contributions from Colin Turfus, Lucy Sweet, Alan Robinson and John Bown of Symbian and wireless case studies from Digia Oy (A Symbian Competence Center) and Telenor R&D.

About this title

Review

Developed by a consortium of several major mobile-telephone manufacturers and licensed by nearly all the others, the Symbian OS seems likely to be the operating system running on the next generation of mobile communications devices. Wireless Java for Symbian Devices explains why the Java programming language is similarly likely to appeal to programmers tasked with providing services to users of Symbian devices. This book is a guide for competent Java programmers who need to know how Java works under Symbian, and want to learn by working through some illustrative examples (beginning with Hello World and working up in complexity from there).

The authors--who work for Symbian--do a good job of revealing their environment's capabilities, and leave their readers feeling prepared to dive in and do less academic development work. Code samples and class diagrams help clarify systems' workings, and explanatory prose is generally lucid. Helpfully, the authors go beyond mere explanation of APIs and show how to build full applications, including a multi-user card game and a chat-and-whiteboard tool. As with any emerging technology, though, readers may wonder how the examples will pan out outside the emulator, in a production environment. Only time and experience will tell. For now, this book represents a good value for people who want to scope out Java's behaviour under the Symbian OS before the combination goes big-time. --David Wall

Topics covered: how to program applications in Java for execution under Symbian OS version 6.0 (both the Quartz and Crystal implementations are dealt with). Sections address the JavaPhone APIs, Java Services and the special security and efficiency requirements of mobile software.

Review

"...aimed at developers who are creating Java applications for Symbian OS phones and other constrained devices." (SciTech Book News, Vol. 25, No. 4, December 2001)

"you should find space on your Java bookshelf for this book." (Wireless Developers Network, 16 April 2002)

"...a readable document, even for beginners..." (Forum Nokia, 6 March 2003)

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0471486841
• ISBN 13: 9780471486848
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 512